


Stranger Things Than Known By Man

by Nellie



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alien Sex, Anal Sex, Double Penetration, Established Relationship, M/M, Tentacles, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:40:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellie/pseuds/Nellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Eames had never told, Arthur never would have guessed. But now he knows what's really under Eames's skin, he can't stop thinking about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Things Than Known By Man

“You said you had it under control!” Arthur slams the motel door shut, dragging the bolt across with bloody fingers.

“I did have it under control,” Eames grits out.

Arthur turns around. “Yeah, because having half your guts hanging out is _controlled_.”

It’s hyperbole, but it makes him feel better as Eames hunches over the kitchenette with one hand clinging to his side. There’s less blood than there was before, which is a good sign, but the air is still thick with the smell of it oozing between Eames’s fingers. “Can you shut up and tear up some sheets or something?”

Arthur doesn’t bother saying anything. He throws his empty guns onto the table and grabs the carefully folded top sheet off the double bed in the far corner. “How deep does it feel?”

“Deep enough for stitches,” Eames says, passing Arthur a knife.

There’s blood dripping down the blade and Arthur’s not sure how much of it is Eames’s and how much belongs to the mark who’d woken up too soon. “Get your shirt off,” he says, reaching past Eames to run the knife under the hot water.

It only takes a few seconds to turn the sheet into long strips. Arthur dunks one under the hot water before turning to Eames. “Bend over.”

“That’s my line, sweetheart,” Eames quips, but he does it anyway, resting his forearms on the counter and letting Arthur at the gaping wound.

As bad as it is, it’s still not the worst Arthur’s ever seen. He pokes at the ragged edges once most of the blood is gone and checks for anything foreign still stuck inside.

“Leave it, Arthur.”

“You got stabbed, deal with the consequences.” Arthur probes deeper. “Hold still.”

“No, I really don’t think--”

He slips his fingers in to test the depth of the cut. They still have a first aid kit in the car that might have dissolvable thread in it, if he needs to throw in some internal stitches to hold Eames together.

But his fingers don’t find the bottom of the cut. There’s something else entirely, a wet cavity with--

Arthur recoils when his fingers brush the smooth, curved shape inside the gash. “Shit, Eames, we need to go to the hospital.”

“Well, we can’t. Just stitch it, I’ll be fine.”

“No, I don’t think you will. I think your guts are actually about three inches away from hanging out.”

Eames’s fingers clench on the edge of the counter. “Just stitch it, Arthur.”

“I could feel your _intestines_ , Eames.”

Eames turns around. “No, you couldn’t. I can stitch it myself if you don’t want to.”

For all that Eames can be cocky, he’s not usually this stupid. “How the fuck do you know? You’re probably in shock.”

“I know because I could feel your fingers, and that was my dorsal macrodactyla you touched, not my intestine,” he snaps.

“Your _what?_ ” Arthur blinks. Maybe Eames lost more blood than it looked like from the stains over the passenger seat of the car.

Eames frowns at him. “How much do you trust me, Arthur?”

“Enough to not want you to die from septicemia,” Arthur says, fishing in his pocket for his cell phone. It’ll be risky going to a hospital so soon, but they’ll deal with it. They’ve dealt with worse before.

Eames closes a hand around Arthur’s before he can lift the phone to his ear. “Don’t. I need to tell you something.”

“What do you need to tell me that’s more important than...”

There’s a smooth loop of flesh bulging out of the cut in Eames’s side. Arthur watches as it slithers further out, horror warring with how calm Eames seems.

Once the... tentacle, it’s a fucking _tentacle_ and there’s no other word for it... slips out of the gash, Arthur’s not sure how he mistook it for intestines. It’s too muscular, moving through the air before settling in a deceptively delicate curve over Eames’s shoulder, slick with blood and mucus.

Arthur drags in a breath and gropes for his totem.

“Don’t bother,” Eames says, sticking his own fingers carefully into the wound, as if he’s checking for damage. “This is reality.”

Arthur’s heart is trying to break his ribs as he rolls the die on the kitchen counter anyway. Two, three, four times and the number is the same, mocking him, trying to tell him that the impossibility staring him in the face must be possible.

“I haven’t always been completely honest with you,” Eames is saying, but the sound is muffled by the rush of blood in Arthur’s ears. “I’m not exactly... well. Human. Where’s the thread?”

It takes Arthur a few seconds to realise what Eames is asking. He takes the needle and thread out of his pocket and hands it over, fingers numb.

“What...” Arthur swallows hard, tries again, but his eyes are fixed on the _tentacle_ and it’s so hard to think. “What are you?”

“Extraterrestrial,” Eames says like he’s just telling Arthur he’s going to the corner store. He threads the needle with deft fingers before the tentacle drifts down, tucking easily back into Eames’s body like it had never been there.

Arthur rolls his die again.

“It won’t do any good,” Eames hisses as the thread pulls his skin back together, but all Arthur can think is _he bleeds red_ , as if that proves none of this can be true.

“We’ll talk,” Eames says once the thread has been cut off, grabbing one of the guns off the table and slamming a fresh clip into it. “We’ll talk later.”

*

They don’t talk.

By the time they reach Peru there’s a new job waiting for them, and while Arthur’s pretty sure there’s never really a perfect time to have a discussion about the fact your boyfriend is an alien, the days go by and neither of them mentions it again.

Arthur catches himself watching though. He always spent a lot of time watching Eames; at first because he didn’t trust him, later because he loved the way his shoulders strained the corners of his jackets. Now he watches because he’s looking for cracks, any little tells that give away the truth.

There are none.

“You don’t act like an alien,” Arthur blurts one night, watching Eames clean his machete on the front veranda.

Eames stops still, eyes on the blade. Then he starts wiping it down again. “It’s my job not to,” he says. “This is just another forgery, Arthur.” He lifts the machete, tilting it in the lamp light. “Another skin I can put on. Only this one is for reality, not for dreams.”

The sound of night bugs fills the silence while Eames picks up a different knife from the table and inspects the edge. “So you’re a... ?”

Eames shrugs. “I am what I am,” he says, evasive, still focused on the knife.

Even though Arthur has enough questions to fill an ocean, he can take a hint.

*

Most of the time the knowledge sits in the back of Arthur’s mind. He never forgets, but he doesn’t think about it all the time either.

Sometimes, he can’t help it.

They’re somewhere off the Australian coast, lying on the deck of the yacht to escape the cloying heat of the cabin.

“One thing I like about the southern hemisphere,” Eames says, voice undercut by the sound of waves lapping at the side of the yacht, “you can see Cetus from here.”

Arthur tucks his hands behind his head. “The sea monster.”

“Right.” Eames’s toes nudge against Arthur’s foot. “You can only see all of it from here, around this time of year.”

“Is that where you’re from?” he asks, lulled by Eames’s nearby warmth and the gentle rock of the boat.

Eames actually laughs. “No. No, you can’t see that from here. Not even in spring, when it’s closest.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“The PASIV program.” Eames rolls over, the broad weight of him pressing Arthur down onto the cool fibreglass.

It’s easy to spread his legs and let Eames kiss him like he’s trying to distract him, easier than pushing the question further, so Arthur does it.

*

If he’s honest with himself, Arthur spends a lot more time thinking about exactly what Eames is hiding under his human skin than he should. It’s ridiculous, that of all the unanswered questions, that’s the one that seems to matter most.

He thinks of the sinuous curve of the tentacle dipping over Eames’s shoulder while Eames strips off his clothes at the foot of the bed. He thinks of what else Eames might be covering up under his human forgery.

When Eames is above him, hands braced on the headboard while he pounds slick and easy into him, Arthur tilts his hips up and begs for more.

But every time he says it, _more, harder, deeper_ , that single tentacle flashes through his mind. He runs his hands down the broad muscle of Eames’s back and clings just below his ribcage, fingers probing, as if he might be able to feel the coils buried under the false skin.

If he lets himself imagine that tentacle curling around his thigh, teasing higher and nudging against him before pushing in, slowly...

Arthur comes, hard, scoring lines across Eames’s lower back with his nails.

*

Eames barely glances at the first few pages of the brief before flipping the folder shut and picking up his coffee. “I can’t take this job.”

“Did you skim the part where there are six zeroes on the end of that paycheck?” Arthur tucks his hands around his own styrofoam cup, shifting his knees so they fit better against Eames’s beneath the table.

“Did _you_ skim the part where we’ll need to be used as control subjects? I can be the dreamer, sure. But I can’t be the subject.”

“For the sake of that kind of money...”

Eames is looking at him, eyebrow raised, as if he’s absolutely dense.

Of course Eames can’t. For all that he can mimic a human face and a human voice, who knows what his subconscious looks like.

Arthur wishes he did. “I’ll find something else. Martinez was looking for some--”

“I can’t, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.” Eames pushes the folder forward until the edge bumps Arthur’s hand. “Tell them I’m indisposed, they’ll find a replacement.”

“It’s a three week job, without travel time.”

Eames shrugs and sips his drink. “We’ve done worse before. I’ll survive. You’ll survive.”

*

Arthur’s not sure how he survives.

At the end of the day though, the only thing better than a seven figure paycheck and the thrill of a perfectly executed plan is the feel of clean sheets under his back as Eames holds his hips down on the hotel bed.

“Hurry up,” Arthur says, only getting in a few strokes of his own cock before Eames knocks his hand away again.

“I haven’t fucked you in nearly a month. I’ll damn well take my time.” Eames twists his wrist, angling his fingers deeper until Arthur moans and arches.

He tips his head back onto the pillow and slides his hand down along his belly again. “That should be a reason _not_ to waste time.”

This time Eames grabs his hand before it gets far, pressing it down into the mattress. “But I want to enjoy this, love.”

“You’re telling me you don’t enjoy stripping me down, giving me a quick two-finger prep, then pulling my legs apart and fucking me so hard we both come within thirty seconds?”

Eames groans and pulls his fingers out. “I want to savour it, then.” But even as he says it he’s sliding his hands to Arthur’s hips and pushing the thick head of his cock in, bare and warm and so much fucking better than the artificial touch of a vibrator. Pure skin on skin, and Arthur shudders at the sensation as Eames slides all the way in, stretching him easily.

But it’s still not enough so Arthur bucks his hips down, forcing Eames deeper, and slips his hand towards his cock.

“Do you want me to make you come or do you just want to do it yourself?” Eames stops Arthur’s hand again and holds it down, fingers tight around his wrist. “Just stay still.”

“Make me,” Arthur says, eyes falling closed as Eames sinks in even further, and fuck, it really has been too long since they’ve been in the same room, let alone been tangled up and gasping against each other.

Eames growls and Arthur tenses his right hand against the pressure of his fingers, testing, before inching his left hand over his hip with a smile.

Something warm wraps around his wrist before he can touch himself. Arthur stops rocking his hips, stops thinking about how badly he wants to come, because Eames has one hand around Arthur’s wrist and the other digging into his thigh and the thing holding his wrist back is too boneless, too _wet_ to be a hand anyway. Arthur opens his eyes and watches the tentacle flex, hypnotic, as it tugs his hand back.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eames says and the tentacle recoils, dropping Arthur’s hand and darting back behind him. “Sorry.”

“No,” Arthur chokes out. And maybe this is a bad idea, a terrible idea, because when it comes down to it he doesn’t know anything about what Eames really is. All he knows is that he wants it, wants it like he wants Eames to stop teasing him and just fuck him until he can’t do anything but moan. “No, don’t be sorry. Do it.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” Eames says, too softly, holding Arthur’s hips still.

It’s too hard to be anything but honest when his legs are spread and Eames’s cock is insistent friction deep inside him. “I know I want you to... to touch me like that.”

Eames leans back onto his knees, supporting Arthur’s ass on the broad muscle of his thighs. The lamplight is more than enough for Arthur to see the crease between his eyebrows, they way he’s chewing on his lower lip.

“Or just _fuck me_ , but make up your mind, fuck,” Arthur hisses.

Eames doesn’t move. Arthur’s about to reach for his own cock again, panting at the hot prickle of desperation sliding over his skin from the motionless tease of Eames inside him, when he notices.

It’s subtle at first, no different to watching a forgery fall apart in a dreamscape. Except Arthur can feel this, the texture of Eames’s skin shifting where it touches him, changing into something too coarse to be human, the subtle differences to musculature and bone even as colour bleeds across his skin like a chameleon. He feels it deep inside, a sudden twist as Eames’s cock changes shape that leaves him panting.

He’s still _Eames_ , humanoid and familiar-faced, but not. Arthur shudders when Eames blinks and looks down at him with yellow-tinged eyes, a flash of sharp incisor visible in his smile.

Within a heartbeat sinuous flesh is wrapped around each wrist and ankle, stretching him out and holding him fast, tapered tips stroking over his skin.

“You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted this,” Eames says, every tentacle tightening around Arthur’s limbs. He reaches down to run his thumb over Arthur’s mouth. “I knew you’d be gorgeous, spread out like this.”

Arthur gasps in a breath as the tentacles around his ankles tense further, pulling his legs apart until he can feel the strain in his hips. “ _Eames_.”

“Don’t say no now,” he breathes, thrusting just hard enough to make the new ridges on his cock drag against Arthur on the inside. “I don’t think I could... just don’t say no.”

Arthur wants to shift his hips, fuck down harder onto Eames’s cock, but he can’t. When he tries the tentacles just tighten a little further in warning, holding him in place. “No, no, fuck me. Please fuck me.”

Eames goes still again and Arthur writhes harder. Being filled up isn’t enough if Eames won’t fucking _move_.

“I’m going to,” Eames says, circling Arthur’s nipples with his thumbs. “Look at me, Arthur.”

He obeys because he wants to, because he wouldn’t have a choice even if he didn’t.

Eames slips two fingers into his own mouth, lips slick and stretched around them in a way that makes Arthur wish he could move an inch, get any friction at all. Instead he watches as Eames slowly drags his fingers out over his lower lip, skin glistening. “I’ve wanted to do this to you for years,” he says, pressing the wet tips of his fingers down between Arthur’s legs where he’s already spread open. “Fuck you properly.”

There’s nothing Arthur can do but breathe through it as Eames slowly twists his fingers in alongside his cock. It’s too much and nowhere near enough, and they’ve done this before, sure, but usually Eames is fucking into him hard by the time he runs a hand down and adds a finger or two to the stretch.

He closes his eyes just as another warm, slick tentacle winds around his waist, steadying him against the push of Eames’s fingers. It’s bizarre but at the same time so good, so fucking good, feeling all that muscle squeezing, holding him down and open so Eames can do what he likes.

“Just stay still,” Eames croons, fucking Arthur with his fingers, pushing them in next to his cock.

Arthur whimpers and rolls his head back and forth to try to scratch the itch building inside, until a tentacle slides around his neck, more gently than the others, just firm enough to stop him moving. The tapered tip teases over his earlobe. “Fuck me,” he grits out, writhing against the bonds, more to feel them cling tighter than out of any real desire to escape.

The fingers inside him withdraw, leaving him feeling strangely empty around the ribbed shape of Eames’s cock. Before he can complain something else presses against him, broader than two of Eames’s fingers. Blunt and dripping and-- “ _Fuck,_ ” Arthur gasps, as a distinctly cock-shaped tentacle edges inside. He can take Eames’s cock, he can even take it with a couple of fingers to really make him feel fucked open. But two... both thick and ridged... Arthur’s thighs shake. “I can’t. I _can’t_.”

“I know you can,” Eames soothes, and it’s true. The second cock slips deeper, twisting, working against tight muscle until Arthur can’t do anything but sob and tremble, so fucking full that every breath he drags in just makes him hyper-aware of how every nerve is stretched tight by Eames’s body.

“Are you satisfied now?” The tentacles coil tighter and Eames thrusts, setting a steady pace. “God, you feel good like this. So fucking tight.”

Arthur sucks in a breath to answer, to moan, to struggle. But something nudges against his mouth, thick and hard. It’s nothing like the tentacles wrapped snug around him, and as it slides across lower lip he realises what it is.

 _Eight_ , some vague part of him thinks as he lets his mouth fall open so the tentacle can push inside, tonguing over the unfamiliar texture, feeling the slit at the tip. The cock spreads his jaw wide and he sucks slowly, running his tongue along the underside before it shoves deeper.

It hits Arthur then, unable to move, barely able to breathe, desperate to come. He’s so utterly out of control it’s like a punch in the guts and he thrashes, but the flexible warmth cradling him while Eames fucks him wide open is unrelenting.

A thumb brushes his lip where it’s stretched around the tentacle. Eames has always liked touching his mouth when they fuck, an odd gesture of reverence and affection, and it sweeps through the instant of panic. This is Eames. It’s all Eames, wrapped around him and pressing into him and all over him. It’s Eames driving the goosebumps across his skin and the desperate tension in his muscles as orgasm hovers just out of reach.

Arthur breathes out through his nose, and relaxes into Eames’s hold, letting the cock in his mouth rub against his tongue before sucking again.

“That’s it,” Eames says, syllables broken at the edges. He tugs Arthur’s ankles higher, shifting the angle and digging his nails into Arthur’s hips before thrusting harder.

Arthur shudders. Normally he needs something more, a hand or a mouth on his cock, to come. But there’s nothing normal about any of this and he moans around the tentacle in his mouth as his cock jerks. It’s the only part of him that’s even capable of moving, spilling warm come all over the quivering muscles of his stomach.

Within a few seconds Eames is following, filling him up with familiar, sticky wetness. The first cock has barely finished coming before Arthur is straining his hips against a second spurt, come dripping down his skin. When the tentacle in his mouth tenses, he’s ready, swallowing every drop. The taste of Eames on his lips is familiar, comforting, and Arthur laps bonelessly at the ridges of the tentacle as it slips from his mouth.

Everything feels too soft when the cocks inside him slowly withdraw, letting more come slide down his inner thigh as the tentacles uncoil. His muscles quiver as they stroke over his skin, fond, and Arthur grabs on to the one around his left wrist as it eases away. It’s smooth beneath his fingers, still slightly damp, and he wishes he could make his mouth work long enough to say he wants that comforting pressure to stay.

*

Arthur doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up clean and aching, nose pressed against the familiar, human nape of Eames’s neck.

It’s a lot more disappointing than it should be.

*

The sound of the shower running is a pleasant counterpoint to the hum of the fan and the light breeze drifting over Arthur’s bare skin as he lounges on the bed, book propped up on his chest. All things considered, it’s been a good day. Even if neither of them did mention what happened. Even if Arthur did spend half his time trying to remember exactly what Eames really looks like, exactly how those tentacles felt wrapped snug around him.

“We’ll need to go shopping tomorrow.”

Eames’s voice breaks Arthur’s attention away from the book. He glances up.  
His hand is half-way to the bedside table and the comforting weight of his Glock before he realises that it isn’t a stranger hanging Eames’s suit in the closet.

It’s just Eames. _Really_ Eames.

There’s nothing Arthur can do but stare. It’s a lot easier to pay attention when he’s not being fucked out of his mind, and the overhead lights do nothing to soften the details the way the bedside lamp did. Water drips down the ridges of his spine, across the faint slits on either side of his lower back to the towel slung low around his waist.

Eames turns towards the bed when Arthur doesn’t answer. “I thought... this was alright.”

For a second Arthur wants to punch him. Mostly he just wants to kiss him. “Eames,” he says, slowly, not sure which part of him he wants to look at more, the tips of his ears, the sharp edge of his teeth. “It is so very alright.”

Slick muscle slips along his inner thigh, teasing his legs apart, and Arthur spreads them without even thinking about it, book dropping from his fingers.

“Even this?” Eames asks from the foot of the bed.

Arthur digs his teeth into his lip as the tapered tip of the tentacle curls around his cock and squeezes gently. Before he can answer a second coils around his knee, pulling it aside so another can slide up to rub against his hole, warm and wet. “Yeah,” he stutters, hips bucking until a tentacle tightens around his waist and forces him to take it. “Yeah, _e_ _specially_ this.”  


* * *

  
[And then later on there is lots of this. <3 (NSFW)](http://92qp.livejournal.com/11789.html#cutid2)   
(Art for this 'verse by Platina)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Just Breathe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/222230) by [Nellie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellie/pseuds/Nellie)




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